the truck and kidnapper of our luggage. But Jimmy had been a small, intense, bespectacled little boy, whose main interest in life was taking things apart. He and Dad got along well that way, although, unlike Dad, Jimmy could also put the things back together again. When he felt like it, which was seldom. I wondered how much time the Central Monhegan Power Company's generator ran and how much time it spent disassembled for maintenance, enhancements, and general tinkering.
'Maybe if she sees how useful the electricity can be, Phoebe might see her way clear to hooking on,' Mr. Dickerman suggested.
'Maybe,' Dad said. 'But then again, you know what a traditionalist Phoebe is.'
'She is that,' Mr. Dickerman agreed. 'We could have used her here this spring, when the town council was squabbling over what to do about Victor Resnick's new house.'
'Victor Resnick? The landscape artist?' Michael asked.
'That's the one,' Mr. Dickerman said. He didn't sound all that fond of the local celebrity, and I suspected Resnick was the Victor Winnie and Binkie Burnham had been so dismayed to see on the docks.
'Monhegan has quite a lot of famous artists,' I said aloud. 'One of the Wyeths lives here, too; or at least he used to. I forget which one.'
'I thought Resnick had moved to Europe,' Dad said, frowning.
'Came back last fall and built himself a new house,' Mr. Dickerman said. 'A real eyesore. Ought to run the bastard off the island.'
'Frank!' Mrs. Dickerman scolded.
'Well, they ought to,' Mr. Dickerman said.
Dad seemed unusually subdued as he and Mr. Dickerman finished hooking up the extension cord and making the arrangements for payment. He was deep in thought during the whole return trip to the cottage--which wasn't exactly a bad thing. Instead of returning by the road, we had to run the extension cord as directly as possible to Aunt Phoebe's--which meant slogging through the Dickermans' overgrown backyard, followed by a brier-filled gully, and then the cord barely reached the living room. Even in our debilitated state, Michael and I probably managed it much better by ourselves than we would have if Dad had insisted on taking an active hand.
Rob pounced on the cord with glee, hooked up his computer, and began tapping away on the keyboard-- though whether he was doing useful work or merely composing an e-mail he could send to Red when the phone lines returned, I had no idea. Dad took advantage of the power supply to hook up his portable CD player and put on his beloved Wagner. And then he scurried out of the room again, after turning up the volume enough that he could hear it from anyplace in the cottage. From anyplace on the island, probably; lucky for us the phones were down, or ours would have rung off the hook with noise complaints.
I glanced at Michael to see how he was taking all this. At least so far, he seemed more amused than annoyed. That was one of Michael's charms: his tolerance for my father's eccentricities seemed as great as mine.
Possibly greater, I thought as the orchestra sank its teeth into a loud, rousing passage of the overture.
The opera was just hitting its stride when the music stopped in the middle of one of Briinnhilde's more appalling shrieks.
Chapter 4
In the sudden absence of Wagner, we heard Aunt Phoebe's voice bellowing in the kitchen.
'Never would have come out here in the first place if we'd had any idea we'd run into that son of a--'
'Sshh!' Mrs. Fenniman hissed, and then, a little louder, she called out, 'What happened to the power?'
'Oh dear,' Mother said, looking up from her magazine. 'Not the generator already?'
'I hope I can save in time,' Rob said, fingers flying over the keyboard.
'Maybe someone tripped over the cord,' I said. 'We should go see if--'
'Damnation!' came a voice just outside the windows.
'I don't think you'll have to go far,' Michael remarked.
The music came back on, almost drowning out the loud footsteps stomping up the porch steps. Carrying Michael's and my suitcases, Dad appeared in the doorway with blood running down his face from a cut on the top of his head.
'James! What happened?' Mother cried, leaping up.
'Tripped over the extension cord,' Dad said. 'Don't fuss; it's not serious. Scalp wounds do bleed a lot.'
'The suitcases,' Michael said, rushing over to take our luggage from Dad. 'I'm so sorry; I forgot they were there. I should have gone back for them.'
'Not to worry,' Dad said. He picked up his black doctor's bag and scurried off to clean up his cut, with Mother trailing in his wake.
Dad brushed off all our attempts at sympathy.
'I'll be fine,' he said when he returned, sporting a picturesque dressing on his head. 'I'll just sit here and listen to my Wagner and I'll feel better in no time.'
After that, of course, guilt prevented us from even asking him to turn it down a little.
Dad hummed and conducted with his fork quite happily for what seemed like an eternity but must have been only an hour or two. Fortunately, before the neighbors showed up at our door bearing torches, like the villagers in a bad horror movie, the power went out again.
'Probably just someone else tripping over the extension cords,' Dad said.
We waited for a few minutes, but no sounds of cursing came from the yard.
'I suppose I'll have to follow the line up to the Dickermans,' Dad said with a sigh.
'I don't think so,' I said, peering out a window. 'The Dickermans' house is dark. And listen.'
Everyone cocked their heads and listened intently for a few seconds.
'I don't hear anything,' Mother said finally. 'Just the wind.'
'That's just it,' I said. 'I've heard this persistent rhythmic humming noise ever since we got to the island. I thought the hurricane was doing it but now I realize it's the generator.'
'She's right,' Aunt Phoebe said. 'I've complained to the town council about that noise. You don't notice it as much when a hurricane's approaching, but in normal weather, it's a menace. Much more peaceful like this, when the generator stops.'
Deprived of his Wagner, Dad decided he was tired, and Mother agreed that perhaps an early night would be a good idea. Since by my calculations they'd covered more than three thousand miles by plane, boat, and automobile over the last forty-eight hours, I wasn't surprised. And the thought occurred to me that if the rest of the family got tired and went to bed, Michael and I might still rescue some shreds of our romantic evening by the fire.
Unfortunately, no one else seemed the slightest bit fatigued. Aunt Phoebe and Mrs. Fenniman were still out in the kitchen, cooking under the soft glow of the oil lamps. Rob wandered about restlessly for a while. Eventually, I could hear him opening the trapdoor and letting down the ladder to the attic. He scuffled around up there for a while, then reappeared with an armload of old volumes.
'What are those?' Michael asked.
'Photo albums that Aunt Phoebe likes to keep around at the cottage,' Rob said. 'She says when people have electricity, they're too busy with TV and computers and stuff to look at old photos.'
'Well, she's right, isn't she?' Michael said. 'What were you doing before the power went out?'
Rob shrugged sheepishly and picked up an album.
'Actually, Rob usually does spend time with the photo albums,' I said. 'It must be the charm of seeing variations on your own face, wearing so many old-fashioned hairdos and clothes, Rob.'
'You could be right,' Rob said. 'Look at this. Great-Uncle Christopher.'
He held up a picture. But for the handlebar mustache and dandified Edwardian clothes, you could easily have mistaken it for a picture of Rob.
'He looks rather dashing in the uniform on the next page, too,' Michael said. 'World War One?'
